Long Beach Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program

Welcome to the Family Medicine Residency Program at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

As you browse through this web site, you’ll get a brief view of what we’ve been building over the past 40 years: a community-based-yet-unusually-academic, unopposed-yet-allied-with-other-specialty-trainees type program, set in one of the most ethnically and socioeconomically diverse cities in California. Ours is a unique program, full of truly unique people, and we’re very proud of the training we provide and the physicians we graduate.

Enjoy the visit.

Jeffrey Luther, MD
Program Director

Mission Statement

Memorial Family Medicine is a center for family practice training committed to excellence in education and patient care.

From the beginnings of the specialty, Southern California has been at the forefront of training and support for family medicine. The Family Medicine Residency Program at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center is proud to be a part of that tradition, graduating fine residency-trained physicians since 1977.

As family medicine has matured as a specialty, we’ve come to see a variety of different training opportunities and environments for the aspiring family physician. These include programs set in university hospitals, staff model HMOs, county hospitals, private community hospitals, etc. Similarly, the type of training afforded residents has become more varied in these settings. At Long Beach Memorial, our goal continues to be to train family physicians to provide excellent care regardless of the type, size or location of practice eventually joined. Our training therefore embraces the breadth of the specialty, with enough flexibility to accommodate each resident’s special interests.

To add to the breadth of training, it continues to be our goal to include educational opportunities which otherwise don’t tend to present themselves in traditional medical training. From the intern hospitalization program, in which each new intern is admitted in cognito to the hospital for an overnight exposure to life on the other side of the bedrail, to exercises in lifestyle changes for the housestaff and faculty, we strive to give our residents something extra to think about and learn.

Demographically, our patient population mirrors that of Long Beach, which, as California’s fifth largest city, is extremely diverse culturally, ethnically and socioeconomically. This diversity, which is further reflected at our Westside Neighborhood Clinic, provides an atmosphere for residents and students to develop a sense of cultural appreciation, as well to be exposed to a broad variety of medical conditions. It has also fostered more of our involvement in the community in sundry ways.

At our annual residency program retreat one recent year, the residents and faculty set about working on team building and long-range planning. Among the outcomes of that weekend were the program’s Mission Statement and Core Values. As we respond to the ever-changing environment in which we train and practice today, they continue to define and guide us.